How to Define, Measure Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction has become an important topic in business circles, especially in recent years. But where is customer satisfaction today? What exactly is customer satisfaction? And how do you measure it?

MaritzCX says CSat is “a key performance indicator that measures how happy customers are with different aspects of a company’s products, services, or customer interactions.”

The company notes that organizations can survey customers as to their satisfaction by asking such questions as “How satisfied are you with the product, service, transaction, or other aspect of the customer experience?” Such surveys frequently use a five-point scale, MaritzCX indicates. And CSat tends to have to do with whether or not you met customer expectations. And it tends to reflect business outcomes.

Interviewing customers is another way to measure CSat. That’s how the American Customer Satisfaction Index measures it. And the ACSI puts out information both about CSat overall and about CSat related to various products and industry verticals.

Speaking of ACSI, just last month the organization reported that the national level of customer satisfaction fell in the second quarter of this year. ACSI said it retreated 0.4 percent to a score of 76.7 on a 0-100 scale. This is the first drop in the overall ACSI since the fourth quarter of 2015.

“Economic growth has been steady – but tepid – since the Great Recession ended eight years ago. There is no mystery about what is needed: greater consumer demand,” ACSI commented. “Stronger wage growth for households would certainly help create demand, as would higher levels of customer satisfaction. The latter increased sharply in 2015, but consumer spending has not grown anywhere near the same pace. Although customer satisfaction shifts the demand curve upwards, discretionary household income has to improve as well.”

A recent article published by callcentrehelper.com, meanwhile, offers some detail on how to calculate and improve the accuracy of measuring customer satisfaction. This piece cautions organizations against sending out too many surveys, which it notes can result in what’s known in industry circles as survey fatigue. It suggests keeping surveys simple, with just a yes or no answer, can be helpful. But it also says organizations need to be careful to understand and define what is meant by customer satisfaction.